Go to Florida, and Save the World

To my great sorrow, I no longer have in-laws in Florida. Were they still around, I would not have to convince them to vote for Obama. Sol and Gert would certainly have done that, unless a butterfly ballot got in the way of their failing eyes. That said, were convincing possible and necessary, I would certainly accept Sarah Silverman’s* advice and make the Great Schlep to Miami to explain to the old Jews I love why they have to vote Obama to leave a decent world to the grandchildren they love. And listen, it would be a really long schlep for me, and I really truly, utterly, sincerely dislike Florida. And that’s on the good days.

Sarah Silverman has this video at www.thegreatschlep.com that urges you to go. You can watch it below. I actually don’t find her terribly funny, and I think anyone reading this blog could do a better job of explaining why McCain-Moosehunter is not a ticket a Jew would like to support. But Sarah gets an A for kavannah, the right intentions (despite the usual F for decorum) so I’m putting the video in.

The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

When my Dad was slipping away last year,the doctor in the nursing home came in and started asking the standard set of questions to determine if an elderly patient is all there mentally: Where are you, the doctor asked, how long have you been here, what year is it, who is the president of the United States. When the young doctor got to the last of these questions, Dad looked up from the bed and said, “Why, George Jackass Bush, of course.”

“Yep, he’s all there,” the doctor said.

Readers, you can do it. Shlep to Florida and make sure that your relatives understand: That Jews vote for people who send their lawyers to talk things out before they start dropping bombs. That in the last eight years Bush has made Iran stronger and Israel more threatened, because he blundered into the Middle East like a bull in a china shop, like a cossack in a shul, and smashed everything up. That McCain will ruin social security. That he will deregulate health insurance. That between a candidate who went to military academy on a legacy admission, and a guy with a single mom who got into Harvard Law purely on his smarts, it’s easy to pick out the yiddishe candidate. That the emails claiming Obama is anti-Israel come from the same kind of people who used to hand out books printed on cheap paper that said Jewish bankers and communists were conspiring to take over America. That McCain’s environmental policies will leave Florida under water, its former location marked only by oil slicks.

You have from now till the beginning of November to make it to Miami. You have but one bubbe to give for your country — unless you are lucky enough to have two.

*Late-night blogging error in her name corrected.